


Andi by Firelight (unfinished)

by Morgan_Dhu



Series: Short prose [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Short Story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-10
Updated: 2019-08-10
Packaged: 2020-08-14 09:57:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20190409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morgan_Dhu/pseuds/Morgan_Dhu
Summary: File dated 1988.  The relationships of a troupe of actors touring rural Nova Scotia, as they put on a production of  Aeschylus's Agamemnon.





	Andi by Firelight (unfinished)

Andi by Firelight

There were five years between us, almost to the day. Not necessarily the most telling of omens, but I was deep into my all-encompassing mystical read-the-stars-and-see-the-unfolding-hand-of-destiny phase, and Andi - Andi could convince herself of anything, given time and the desire.

We were playing at Greek tragedy that summer, rousting about from sleepy Nova Scotian town to town, doing the Aeschylean Agamemnon in sombre blacks and greys, with great intensity and little understanding. Little more than a vagrant band of theatre students, we were playing at being artists playing kings and queens, as we setup night after night in community halls and the barn-like auditoria of rural schools. With each riser and backdrop we maneuvered into place, we imagined that this evening, among the bored teenagers and the uncomprehending farmers of our audiences would be the famous Toronto producer, or the CBC executive who would point his magical finger and set us on the path to stardom.

This was our second season on the road, though most of us had been acting together far longer than that, through our university years. Our first year, we had had as our director one of the cast, but this spring the company had acquired a new director a classic, brooding, "I shall inherit the chair of Ingmar Bergman" type, who looked on all our posings with a gaze of Nordic ice. Me, he disdained more than most, with my off-stage role of guru to the cast, telling fortunes and reading secrets from open palms. But actors are by tradition a superstitious lot, and my raggle taggle gypsy act had always been a solid hit in the inevitably liquid evenings that followed each striking of the set. And there was some method to my madness this time, for I was Cassandra.

Joining the company along with Sten had been his wife, who was our stage manager, construction chief, set, prop, and costume mistress, and general step and fetch it girl. It was she who kept the self-indulgent chaos of our lives in a modicum of order, smoothed the troubled waters between actor and director, somehow seeing that each play night we were there, waiting in the wings, our every need forseen, ready when the house lights went to black. This was my first image of Andi.

It is true that theatre folk have a reputation, often well-deserved, for bringing as much drama to their private lives as they give public life to drama. Rare indeed is the actor who when he quits the stage, leaves masks and crafted dialogue behind him. The effect is naturally intensified in the interaction of actors with each other, never more so than when the company tours. Off the road, other outlets could be found for the manic energy that drove us, by going to ground among people who do not share in the life, but on tour, where every town is a sea of strangers' faces, the only certain recourse is to each other. And the drama feeds on every aspect of one's life, and is fed by it. It is perhaps a necessary reaction to the nature of the craft: each night, the actor bends and twists his soul to match the contours of another's hopes and fears, and in the task of realignment, must labour prodigiously to redefine the boundaries of the self. 

Our company was no different: living in eachother's dreams and nightmares, acting out a thousand traumas counterpointed to the thin sustaining line of plot and purpose which bound us to eachother and the road. Each backstage emotion was pushed to the extreme, merely to verify - and demonstrate - that it was real, and one's own.

Our Agamemnon, the doomed king, wore the face and trappings of the classic hero over the spirit of a county clerk. Bob was never less than competent with his variations on the single role that he could play, but also never more. The fire of genius that sometimes flared in the interpretations of others was more than he could bear at times, fearing that the laurels he above all others in the cast so desperately desired would always be placed on another's brow. In this fear he was regrettably correct.

Ironically, the truest gift among us was found with Maggie, who could, when she was "on", have rivalled Bernhardt for intensity and passion. Unfortunately, the process that brought her to this point invariably involved a quart of vodka. This particular avenue for settling into one's role had already lead to her dismissal from three other companies, and would have the same result again. She was a brilliant Clytemnestra as long as she could command the stage, but ensemble scenes led to some difficulty, as she was reluctant to yield focus, and never gave the same cue twice.

Paul gave to the role of the fated mother-slayer Orestes an interesting blend of sensemilla and blond, which was not the interprtetation that the playwright had intended, but was perhaps necessry in separating reality from theatre, as Maggie had more than once given him grounds for burying her in her part. Paul was tall and dark and sensuous and gay, and Maggie viewed this last point as not only irrelevant to her intent, but in the nature of a personal insult.

Much of Maggie's ire was focued on Paul's lover, Gregor, who was our Chorus, a role which allowed him to do what he did best, stand back and comment on the outrageous acts of others without ever requiring an initiative of his own. Gregor was the eternal watcher, divorced from action, suffering from the most serious of all disfunctions, a paralysis of the will.

Electra was portrayed in a wan and listless fashion by our resident depressive, the fair Julia. It must be acknowledged that she did wan and listless very well, with a suitably interesting undertone that kept one ever eager for the next installment of woes. And fascinating woes they were, never commonplace or expected, but always tinged with the evidence of imagination and careful thought.

Completing the company was myself, two apprentices who played the incidental roles of servants and spear-carriers, and Sten, and Andi.


End file.
